A Research On "K-VP" Interrogative Sentence In Tongling Dialect

The"K-VP"interrogative sentence is a special kind of interrogative sentence in modern Chinese dialects,which is geographically distributed and consists of the interrogative adverb"K"followed by a verb phrase.The question adverb"K"has different phonetic or written forms in different dialects.This paper is a multi-faceted examination of the Tongling dialect"K-VP"interrogative.The first chapter introduces the phonological overview of the Tongling dialect,reviews the current status of research on the"K-VP"interrogative in China,explains the problems that have not been fully investigated by previous authors,and describes the theoretical framework,research methods and sources used in this paper.The second chapter discusses the structural form,syntactic distribution and semantic features of the Tongling"K-VP"interrogative.There are three expressions of"K-VP"in Tongling dialect,among which"咯[k（?）²²]VP"in Jianghuai official dialect and"过[ko⁴⁴]VP"in Wu dialect are The general usage of"K-VP"can be divided into basic and derivative forms.In terms of syntactic distribution,the"K-VP"structure itself,the"VP"within it and the syntactic position of the gerund within the structure are all diverse.In terms of semantic features,the"K-VP"interrogative is used to constrain the focus of the question by using the adverb’over’as the focus marker;the semantic types are questioning,enquiring,measuring,evaluating and cross-examining.A special usage in the Wu language area,"欸[（?）²¹³]VP",differs from the general"过VP"in three main ways:the degree of knowledge,the ratio of doubt to belief and subjective tendency.The third chapter examines the main functions of the special usage of K-VP"K是"and its syncretism in the natural oral communication of Tongling dialect.In the grammatical process,the phonology of"K是"is weakened and the syncretism combined-syllable is created,sharing with"K是"the functions of propositional question marking and communicative questioning,and adding to the discourse These functions reflect the"continuous environment"of the grammaticalisation of"K是".These functions reflect the"continuous environment"of grammaticalisation.The combined-syllable produced in the later stages of grammaticalisation are related to phonological,semantic,grammatical and pragmatic elements.The fourth chapter investigates and analyses the horizontal geographical and vertical age distribution differences of the three forms（"个VP","过VP"and"欸VP"）in Tongling dialect,and analyses their distribution patterns and diffusion in terms of the multidimensional language The paper also discusses the political,economic and cultural factors that contribute to the formation of these forms,and develops a diffusion model.The fifth chapter summarises the main ideas,innovations and shortcomings of the paper.